


Landslide Bring Me Down

by Magical_Girl_Wanda_Maximoff



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, One Shot, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Girl_Wanda_Maximoff/pseuds/Magical_Girl_Wanda_Maximoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of searching Hilda found N again. After they reunited they decided to return to Unova together, but after fifteen years a lot can change, and time may not be able to heal all wounds, but a good person can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Landslide Bring Me Down

The bright pink and orange light from the neon sign outside seeped through the dusty metal curtains and across the interior of the budget motel room that they were staying in. It would have been enough to keep both of them up but the day of travel before had been absolutely exhausting, but even then Hilda couldn’t fall asleep. She lay awake looking at the water stained spotted tiles on the ceiling. It had been a long fifteen years for her, so many times that she almost gave up only to have another lead come up in another far away region. Now they were back together, and neither of them had plans of splitting up again. The trip back to Unova had been a hard one, both of them weren’t sure how they would be treated when they got back home. Hilda knew that N probably wouldn’t be accepted, he may have been taken down from Interpol’s most wanted list, but because of what Team Plasma had done all those years ago she was sure that he wouldn’t be welcomed back with open arms. Hilda looked at the clock, the red numbers said that it was almost four in the morning.  
“ Arceus I have to get to sleep, I wanna make it back home by my birthday and if I want to get back on time we’re gonna have to pick up the pace, and N’s gonna want to go on all those detours again. How old am I gonna be again? Oh right, 33, but I don’t feel it. I could be that 17 year old girl leaving home for the first time, because it feels like it was only yesterday that I left home. I guess as you get older the years really get shorter. I really should be getting to sleep, Unova’s a long ways away from Orre”  
Hilda looked at the man in the bed beside her, N didn’t look any older than the day that they first met. He had been through so much in his life, Hilda couldn’t possibly imagine how she would’ve reacted if she was in his situation back then. Hilda began to feel the weight of tiredness in her eyes. She Yawned, pulled the ratty blankets over her body and fell asleep. She didn't dream at all that night. The exhaustion from the hard day of travel and her insomnia had worn her down to the point where such things were unnecessary now. As suddenly as Hilda had fallen asleep she was awoken by a loud crash coming from the bathroom. She sat bolt upright in the bed, ancient springs creaking under her weight. N wasn’t beside her and the side of his bed was cold, there was a light coming from the bathroom and a soft but unmistakable sobbing. Hilda dashed to the bathroom in a panic, throwing the door open with all her might, she wasn’t prepared for the scene in front of her. N was keeled over on the bathroom floor, blood dripping from his hand, and the bathroom mirror was shattered all around him.  
“ What in the name of Arceus just happened?” Hilda gasped as N tried to hide his bloody hand behind his back.   
“ I, I… I thought I saw him… I, … I … I saw him, I saw him in the mirror.” N stammered, whimpering in pain.  
“ Who’s him, c’mon N we’re the only people in this bathroom, your hand is bleeding N, let’s try and see if the front desk has any…”   
“ I thought I saw Ghetsis in the mirror,” N blurted. He said it so quickly that it sounded like it was all one word. Hilda knew that N talked fast, she had known it since they first met, but he had seemed to have calmed down in recent years.   
“ I saw Ghetsis, my father, or the man who said he was my father in the mirror, or at least I saw his face.” N was on the verge of tears.  
Hilda kneeled down and wrapped N in a towel.  
“ Let me see your hand, you cut it up when you broke the mirror, just let me…” N showed hilda his hand, his knuckles were burst and the crimson of his blood was in stark contrast with his pale, almost translucent skin.   
“ Oh, thank you,” Hilda smiled at N, but he continued to cry.  
“ N, you know that Ghetsis can’t hurt you anymore.” Hilda looked at N sympathetically, “He’s been dead for years. You have to know that, it was all over the news. N, and, and if there was some way that he could possibly hurt you again, you know I have your back, through thick and thin, I’ve got you.”   
N looked up at Hilda, tears were still streaming from his eyes.  
“ It wasn’t that I saw him, I saw his face, I saw it… in place of mine, I ran for all of those years to get away from him, but I always felt that no matter how far I ran or where I went, he was right behind me.”  
N had a guilty look on his face.   
“ That is why I ran away. I couldn’t stay in Unova, what with the police looking for me too. He would have caught up to me in time and he… he … he… he,” N trailed off, turning away from Hilda.  
“ He would’ve?” Hilda questioned, tensing up, she wasn’t sure how well her question would go over with N.  
“ He Would’ve killed me, he said that I was useless, that I was a quote, freak without a human heart, and as I got older and saw more of the world I began to understand just how awful he was to me. I saw people, families, children who loved and respected each other, they we’re not mean or cruel to each other. Many of them were not selfish but as I became more experienced with the world, I learned that he was warning me against himself. I hope you can understand what I’m saying, I’m just so afraid of him, or becoming like him.”  
Hilda looked at N’s face, she could see it now, he wasn’t that boy she met all those years ago in Accumula town. N still had those big blue grey eyes that would sparkle with childlike wonder at the world, but there was something else there, his eyes looked deeper, more world weary.   
“N, you are not your father, and you should know that. we’ve gotten older and because of that we’ve changed.” Hilda smiled reassuringly but N turned away again.  
“Is something wrong?” Hilda asked.  
“I saw his face, and as crazy as it sounds I had his face, I know it sounds like a cliche from one of those movies you like, but I don’t want to see myself becoming him. I can’t.”  
N adjusted the towel around his bleeding hand. Hilda knew that she had to do something, she could see what he was talking about. N had always been very thin, on the journey back he had acquired the nickname “noodle” and they would joke about it and all, but his cheeks had never been so sunken. His eyes had bags under them, and were ringed by the beginning of fine lines. Hilda thought long and hard about what to say, pondering over the perfect word choice, but what she said just slipped out of her mouth.  
“ What if we need a change?” Hilda said, N perked up,”what?” N inquired.  
“ Wait here, I’m gonna get something from my bag,” Hilda exclaimed. She got up from the bathroom floor and into the motel room, returning a couple of minutes later with a pocket knife.  
“Hilda what are you doing?” N wondered as she unfolded the knife.  
“You’ll see,” Hilda grinned.  
Hilda grabbed her long, wavy, brunette hair in one hand and began to chop at it with the knife. She spent a few minutes cutting at it, collecting as much of it as she could in her other hand.   
“They made this look much easier in the movies,” Hilda joked, severing the last lock of hair from her head.   
“ I didn’t have a mirror so I don’t know what it looks like, but I think that I didn’t do half bad. What do you think N?” Hilda smiled and began looking for a big enough piece of the shattered mirror to examine her handiwork in.  
“ I figured that we needed some change, like this is what people do in movies and junk when they move on from something, so I guess it could work in real life. Do you want me to…”  
“ Yes’, N answered, “ I would like you to cut my hair. I’m not really into the whole symbolism thing, even though I’ve seen the world some human things still are a bit odd for me, at least it would help me....” N trailed off.  
“ Let’s at least patch you up and fix this mirror.” Hilda said as she ran out of the room.  
Hilda went out to the service desk and explained what had happened in their room, she got some bandages for N’s hand and paid for the mirror. She went back to the room and bandaged N’s knuckles and cleaned up the shattered mirror.   
“ So you’re serious about the haircut?” Hilda asked, sweeping glass into the trash can.  
“I guess?” N shrugged, “like it’s not like my hair is part of who I am and all, it does get awfully hot sometimes, and when I was a Ranger in Almia I had it cut short.”  
“Really?” Hilda asked.  
“Yeah I had to do it because It was too long for the uniform regulations, I even had a side shaved back then”, N chuckled.  
“ I mean that you were a ranger, like you totally seem like the ranger type. Wait, you had it cut short? but it looks almost exactly like it was when we met, how’s that possible?”   
“cough, fifteen years, cough, it grew back, and it was only like shoulder length.”  
“Oh,” Hilda laughed, “ can’t believe that I forgot that hair grew.”  
“I want you to be the one who does it, cuts my hair.” N blurted in his usual manner.   
“ You did a beautiful job on yours,” N added.  
Hilda looked for the closest reflective surface. She looked at the rusty metal trash can and was surprised that she hadn’t taken the chance to look at her new haircut sooner. Her former waist length hair was gone and in its place was a surprisingly symmetrical wavy chin length bob. “Wow, it doesn't look half bad”, Hilda exclaimed. N got off the floor and sat on the toilet, adjusting his ponytail. Hilda stood up and opened the pocket knife again.  
“ How much would you like off?” Hilda asked, examined N’s hair. It was much thicker than her’s and it was a bit tangled.  
“How about to my shoulders,” N responded.  
It took much longer to cut N’s hair than Hilda expected but when she was done and N walked out into the room and saw his hair in the mirror he was beaming from ear to ear.  
“It feels so good to have it all gone, so much lighter… I don’t look like him anymore!” N exclaimed, but in Hilda’s mind the last comment painted the whole ordeal in a more bittersweet light.   
“ You know that someday we’re gonna grow old and stuff,” Hilda sighed, looking at their reflections.   
“Yeah but let’s focus on today, and maybe let’s take the bus, both of us are really tired. C’mon let’s pack up and head on out. You can philosophise all you want on the road.” N responded as the sunrise came pouring through the slats of the curtains.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello this is Phoenix and this is my first time posting a fanfic, I hope you enjoy it.   
> Also happy Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day!


End file.
